Advanced Tips for Writing Assignments That Stand Out
You could be writing assignments but they could be failing to get you the grade you need. What you need to do is write assignments that stand out—that show how you are different from the other submissions. In this post, we’re going to be talking about some advanced tips that you can follow to make this happen.
Advanced Tip Number 1: Start really early on and do your research smartly
Starting early on and doing research aren’t really that advanced or different tips if you think of it. But we’re going to explain what we mean.
Let’s first talk about starting early on.
a. Starting early on
Usually, when you’re given an assignment, you’re told to do it either next week or the very next day.
If you are told to submit the assignment after a week, it means you have seven days to do it (presumably). Instead of waiting until the fourth or fifth day to get started, you should get started right at the very moment you’re given the instructions.
You can follow this timetable if you have a weeklong deadline for your assignment.
è Day 1: Planning and outlining the assignment
è Day 2, 3, and 4: Performing research ONLY
è Day 5 and 6: Writing
è Day 7: Proofreading and finalization
Notice how we’ve been very loud with the “ONLY” up there? It means that when you’re doing your research, you should not do anything else. You should not write, you should not adjust the plan or outline, or anything else.
The most time you should give is to the research. We cannot stress this enough. The heftier your research is, the more authoritative and high-quality your assignment comes out to be.
If you don’t have seven days to work with, you can just use the above formula for whatever the deadline may be. It comes to roughly:
è 40% of your time on research
è 30% on writing
è 15% on planning and outlining
è 15% on checking and finalizing
Doing research smartly
Let’s move on to the research part.
A lot of people can have the idea that it is fine to just open up a few online sources, read the stuff written there, and then write it down in their own words.
This is not right. This isn’t exactly research, and this isn’t exactly the way to write good assignments.
You have to be smart about how you conduct your research. And being smart, in this matter, can be summed up into these points:
· Your research should take place separately and independently from the writing phase. These two things should not be simultaneous.
· The results of your research should be concepts and ideas noted down in your own words. You should not take the exact wording and phrasing from the sources. This can cause you to commit plagiarism.
· Whenever you take information from a source, you should note down its citation details for later.
That’s about it for the first tip. Let’s move on to the second one.
Advanced Tip Number 2: Keep your assignment content separate and structured
To explain the importance of keeping your assignments properly structured, let’s draw an analogy with wires and cables that are usually hanging at the back of a typical computer desk.
If the cables and wires are neatly sorted with ties and brackets, they’re an actual pleasure to look at. You can easily find where all the wires and cables are, you can easily plug them in or take them out.
It’s a weird analogy, but if you’re thinking like we think you are, you’re probably getting the point.
Now, think of an assignment in which all the content is gobbed up in the form of one huge paragraph. Imagine. A couple of thousand words, starting with the first letter of the para and ending right at the bottom.
It would be horrendous to look at. No one would think of reading it. A teacher, considering their duty, would be compelled to read it, but they wouldn’t really like it.
Here is what you have to do to avoid making your assignment into this sort of mess.
· Break your content down into headings. 500 to 600 words in one heading is usually okay.
· Break your headings down into sub-headings. 150 to 200 words in one subheading is usually fine.
· Number all the headings and subheadings.
· Create a table right at the very start to help the teacher or the reader navigate through the content easily.
Advanced Tip Number 3: Use online tools where you’re allowed
Pay special attention to the last part of that heading. “Where you’re allowed…”
Normally, teachers and professors aren’t really very eager about letting their students use online tools for their assignments. But sometimes, there are relaxations and considerations made in this regard.
Using online tools to get help in assignment writing can be a great idea. They can make a lot of tasks easy to do and they can make a lot of things a lot quicker, thus helping you save time.
Below, we’re going to list some types of online tools that you can use when writing assignments. You can just pick and use the ones that there is no prohibition on by your teachers or institute.
è Grammar checkers: One of the most common and perhaps most innocent online tools that you can use when writing assignments is grammar checkers. Grammar checkers can help you find and remove grammar and spelling errors from your write-up.
è Paraphrasing tools: Paraphrasing tools have a lot of uses, and some of them are unethical. We don’t promote using them for any wrong ends, such as taking content from an online source and using it as your own after “spinning” it. Rather, we recommend using paraphrasing tools to improve the quality of your own write-up and make it better to read.
è Plagiarism checkers: You have to make sure that there is no plagiarism in your assignments before you hand them in. There is usually no proscription on plagiarism checkers. It’s actually the opposite.
Finding all of these tools on the Internet separately can be a bit of a hassle. We personally recommend using an all-in-one toolkit like Editpad, where you can find all of them together.
Conclusion
And that is all we’re going to be writing today.
While brief and concise, this post does contain some helpful tips that you can and should follow when writing assignments. Always remember to start early, do good research, structure and organize your text, and use tools where you can.